Yearly Archives: 2017

Strengthening rural institutions and empowering people to reduce poverty and inequalities

By admin in News on August 14, 2017

The majority of the world’s rural poor are family farmers, fishers, livestock and forest users who
live in isolated areas and who depend on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods.

Being both marginalized and geographically dispersed, the rural poor face major
constraints in seizing social and economic opportunities to improve their lives and
those of their families. This is especially true for women, youth and indigenous
peoples as they often bear the brunt of the socio-economic disparities that hinder
equal access to land, resources, education, information and opportunities to
participate in development processes.

The work of FAO on Rural Institutions, Services and Empowerment (RISE)
contributes to the Organization’s efforts to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition
and to unlock the development potential of rural areas. This is tackled through the
promotion of inclusive, gender-transformative socio-economic development and
sustainable livelihoods in rural areas.

FAO supports territorial and place-based policies to reduce within country
disparities in poverty, food security and nutrition levels and allow for more
inclusive, effective and equitable governance of natural resources.
FAO supports development of pluralistic market-oriented service systems,
with an emphasis on collective action and producer organizations, to enable
small-scale family farmers to increase productivity, link to markets and improve
their livelihoods.
FAO develops capacities for sustainable and inclusive rural financial systems
and agribusiness investments to assist poor rural families better manage their
current livelihoods, ensure economic resiliency and to shift towards more
profitable production systems.
FAO promotes the socio-economic empowerment of women, men and youth
through inclusive social mobilization, participatory communication, women’s
leadership and voice in decision-making and community governance.

Click here to access the publication.

Originally published on the FAO website

We’ve Made Great Strides in the Fight Against Global Hunger. So Why Are Millions at Risk of Starvation?

By admin in News on August 14, 2017

More people around the world are escaping extreme poverty than ever before. In just 10 years, 167 million fewer people are undernourished. But we cannot let another day go by without acknowledging that millions more children, men and women are currently at risk of starvation, and this progress is in danger of being reversed. Knowledge is power, as the old adage goes, and we are convinced that if more Americans know about this crisis we can save more lives.

This February, the world’s first famine in six years was declared in parts of South Sudan. Though it was recently downgraded, conditions in South Sudan have actually continued to deteriorate, and we are still on the brink of the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time. The United Nations has warned that millions of families could face starvation in this lean period between growing seasons – primarily in Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan – and that 1.4 million children are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death.

In South Sudan, families wade through miles of swamp to reach food, and people in Nigeria eat sand to ward off starvation. In Yemen, we see children with bloated stomachs from water retention and brittle, sparse and yellowish hair from lack of keratin. Some Somali farmers report 100 percent of their livestock are dying. Why are parents in these countries forced to decide between medical attention for one sick child and food for another? Why are we still asking these questions today, when we should have the power and resources to end this suffering?

There is no one simple answer, and we know that extreme weather patterns exacerbate dire conditions in these countries. It is no coincidence that the four countries teetering on the edge of famine – Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria – are all embroiled in violent conflict, whether it is prolonged civil war or violent extremist organizations exacerbating other vulnerabilities such as drought or weak governance. A decade ago natural disaster was the driver of 80 percent of the world’s humanitarian need. Today, that has been completely flipped on its head: conflict, a human-made disaster, has now taken its place.

Click here for the full article.

Originally published on the Huffington Post website.

New paper discusses women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction

By admin in News on August 14, 2017

Land is an important asset for rural households, and having secure land rights is important for poverty reduction. Despite the large body of literature on the relationship between land tenure security, livelihoods, and poverty, most of this literature is based on household-level data and does not consider possible intrahousehold inequalities in land ownership. We know very little about the relationship between women’s land rights and poverty, not only because data on women’s land rights (WLR) are rare, but also because of the implicit assumption that women belong to households that pool resources completely. Thus, it is the land rights of households, not women, that matter for poverty reduction. However, growing evidence that households do not pool resources completely and that women have fewer assets than men warrants attention to the potential role of WLR in poverty reduction.

The new IFPRI discussion paper by Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Agnes Quisumbing, Cheryl Doss, and Sophie Theis, Women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: A framework and review of available evidence reviews the literature on WLR and poverty reduction. It adapts the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project (GAAP) conceptual framework to identify pathways by which WLR could reduce poverty and increase wellbeing of women and their households in rural areas. It uses a systematic review search methodology to identify papers for inclusion, but adopts a more synthetic approach to assess the level of agreement and the amount of evidence within this literature. The paper examines the evidence from qualitative as well as quantitative studies on each of these pathways. Owing to the scarcity of experimental studies, the review of empirical work is based mostly on observational studies. Authors find some evidence on these relationships, but many of the key pathways have not been empirically analyzed. The evidence is strong for relationships between WLR and bargaining power and decision making on consumption, human capital investment, and intergenerational transfers. There is a high level of agreement, but weaker evidence on the relationship between WLR and natural resource management, government services and institutions, empowerment and domestic violence, resilience and HIV risk, and consumption and food security. There is less agreement and insufficient evidence on the associations between WLR and other livelihoods, and a higher level of agreement, but still limited evidence on associations between WLR and credit, technology adoption, and agricultural productivity. Notably, authors find no papers that directly investigate the link between WLR and poverty. Many gaps in the evidence arise from a failure to account for the complexity of land rights regimes, the measurement of land rights at the household level, the lack of attention paid to gender roles, and the lack of studies from countries outside Africa. Many studies are limited by small sample sizes, the lack of credible counterfactuals, lack of attention to endogeneity and selection bias, and possible response bias on questions of domestic violence and empowerment. There are very few rigorous evaluations of reforms that strengthened WLR. The paper concludes that gaps in the evidence should not deter the careful design and implementation of programs and policies to strengthen WLR, given the ongoing land tenure reforms in many countries. Different modalities and mechanisms for strengthening WLR could be tested, with appropriate counterfactuals. Program designers and evaluators can strategically identify pathways and outcomes where evidence gaps exist, and deliberately design studies to close those gaps.

Click here for the full story.

Originally published on the Policies, Institutions and Markets website.

‘Spongy’ Soil Can Help Farmers Combat Climate Change

By admin in News on August 14, 2017

Droughts are expected to worsen and intense storms to become more frequent across much of the country in coming decades as the planet warms, but their impact on agriculture could be blunted if American farmers focus on their roots.

A new study, released Wednesday, examines the benefits of cover cropping—planting soil-enriching plants between crop cycles—and other soil-boosting practices used around the world, with a close look at Iowa, one of the Midwest’s top-producing agriculture states. The study determined that farmers could help their land better withstand some of the effects of a warming climate by making their soil more “spongy.”

“Spongy soil holds more water,” said Andrea Basche, the study’s author and a Kendall Science Fellow in the Union of Concerned Scientists Food and Environment Program. “What we found to be the most effective and consistent way to get more porous soil is keeping roots there.”

That certain practices help build soil health—including cover-cropping or “no-till,” in which farmers refrain from plowing soil—has long been understood in agriculture. But in the American Midwest, where corn and soybeans are the most widely grown crops, few farmers have embraced these practices. As little as 2 percent of growers in the Mississippi River basin plant cover crops, despite evidence suggesting they not only boost yields but also make soil more resilient to increasingly volatile weather.

Click here for the full story.

Originally published on the Inside Climate News Website.

Will Africa’s Great Green Wall discourage migration to Europe?

By admin in News on August 3, 2017

The Great Green Wall is more of a metaphor than an actual wall. It was initially conceived as a physical barrier of trees on the edge of the desert, but over the past few years, it has evolved into a hodge-podge of projects that attempt to restore degraded land and combat desertification. Thanks in part to the ongoing war in Syria, the phrase “migration crisis” is on the pages of every European newspaper, on the lips of its politicians and on the minds of voters. While Syrians dominate the news coverage, many migrants risking their lives in inflatable boats travel from sub-Saharan Africa through Libya. It’s this story that environmentalists are increasingly trying to highlight in an effort to capture the attention (and money) of European governments and international donors.

By 2020, some 60 million people [pdf] from sub-Saharan Africa are expected to migrate to North Africa or Europe because of desertification alone, and that number will only grow larger through the subsequent decades. Great Green Wall proponents now make the case that the wall is a key part of a broader strategy to stem the tide of African migrants coming to Europe’s shores – too many of whom die along the way.

“There is an emergency, and I have a feeling that people do not really get it,” says Monique Barbut, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. “Most of the people who talk about migration – the press, the TV and all that – they always either say it’s because there’s a war or because they are so poor they are migrating. But why do you have wars? Why do you have economic distress which makes you migrate? It’s rare that people unearth the real roots of that question.”

Every year, some 12 million people from west and central Africa leave their home countries, and more than 75% [pdf] of this migration happens within sub-Saharan Africa. Men from landlocked countries like Niger go to the coasts of Senegal or Cote d’Ivoire and work in the ports; others, who have a bit more to spend, go to South Africa, where they can earn more than in their villages.

But today, a greater number of migrants from more developed countries like Senegal pay smugglers to bring them to Europe. This pattern is not new, but the numbers are: this is the biggest global wave of migration since the second world war, and it is only set to grow. Development successes – fewer infant and child deaths, lower rates of maternal mortality, longer lifespans – coupled with stubbornly high fertility rates mean the population of the Sahel region is set to grow by 250% in just a few decades, from 135 million people today to 340 millionby 2050. At the same time, communities that used to be desperately impoverished are doing a little better. There are more healthy young men with heavy financial obligations than in generations before, and more resources to afford the trip abroad.

Click here for the full story

Youth involvement in agribusiness: Examples from Africa

By admin in News on July 31, 2017

According to the 2017 World Food Prize laureate, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the ”future of African youth lies in agriculture.” This future can be realized through making agriculture both profitable and “cool” for young people. Adesina also argues for the need to move the perception of agriculture from a way of life for millions of rural people to a business.

These thoughts are echoed in the ongoing online discussion, Engaging African Youth in Agribusiness in a Changing Climate, a platform which creates a space to discuss critical issues facing African youths. Most of the discussants agree with the sentiment that agriculture is one of the critical pathways out of poverty and unemployment for young people. Accelerating the involvement of African youth in agriculture and agri-business will also help meet development goals, like those put forth by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including ending extreme poverty, zero hunger and gender equality. However, the rate of progress in many areas, especially developing countries where the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and its partners work, is far slower than needed to engage youths in agribusiness under a changing climate.

If the speed of progress is to be increased, the current gaps in youth engagement must be addressed. First, governments must be held responsible for investing in youth through a commitment to providing financial support, including increased spending on youth initiatives along agricultural value chains. In Ethiopia, Save the Children, in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, has established a five-month learning cycle with the aim of improving young people’s socio economic status through the establishment of agri-focused individual enterprises, including input production, production, processing and retailing. A number of Ethiopian youth (both girls and boys) have started businesses selling spices, poultry, camels and bread in the Save the Children program, Youth in Action.

Second, youth must be empowered through opportunities to engage in agribusiness enterprises and linkages to private sector and development agencies. For example, in Kenya, USAID-supported East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, Syngenta, the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) and the Toyota Kenya Academy launched the Young Innovators in Agribusiness Competition to provide young people with the chance to market their products to potential investors. Interested investors then scale-up these products to a wider audience across the globe. Through this program, Catherine Mbondo, a 35-year-old women, established Proactive Merit, a business that trades in raw honey and clay facial scrub masks which incorporate neem (Azadirachta indica), a fast growing medicinal and vegetable tree native to India, but now widely grown in Kenya. Mbondo adds value to agricultural products, marketing them as a natural cosmetics product. She intends to sell her products across East Africa.

EverGreen Agriculture

EverGreen Agriculture

Yearly Archives: 2017

Strengthening rural institutions and empowering people to reduce poverty and inequalities

We’ve Made Great Strides in the Fight Against Global Hunger. So Why Are Millions at Risk of Starvation?

New paper discusses women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction

‘Spongy’ Soil Can Help Farmers Combat Climate Change

Will Africa’s Great Green Wall discourage migration to Europe?

Youth involvement in agribusiness: Examples from Africa